My Turn:

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Wrapping paper - Gifts bags if you're in a hurry.
2. Real tree or Artificial? Real, However, I am seriously thinking of an artificial because I can't have an Oregon Nobel
3. When do you put up the tree? When we can - usually around the 10th but it is now the 15th and no tree in sight yet.
4. When do you take the tree down? After New Years
5. Do you like eggnog? Yes, yum
6. Favorite gift received as a child? My horse when I was 12.
7. Hardest person to buy for? That's alright Lahia - it must be common. I love my father in law but he is hard to buy for also. However, Jeff gets harder and harder each year. He is SO picky about clothes worse than a girl!
8. Easiest person/people to buy for? Stefani, Doug and for Lahia and Jason who give lists! YEAH.
9. Do you have a nativity set? I used to but Doug broke them when he didn't wrap them after Christmas.
10. Mail or email Christmas cards? I'm really not good at sending cards.
11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? A juicer - Doug thought that I really wanted one - he didn't listen to me. We were laughing about his grandpa juicing everything and he thought that I wanted one. [Doug] - Here is a small editor's note: She did, in fact, tell me that she wanted a juicer, along with an ice crusher. It was for Mother's Day - not Christmas.
12. Favorite Christmas Movie? It's a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, and Elf.
13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Usually in November
14. I don't know because I'm not sure what the question was.
15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Sugar cookies with frosting, fudge, eggnog
16. Lights on the tree? White and lots of them
17. Favorite Christmas song? Lots of them - Oh, Holy Night and Santa Baby and everything in between (almost)
18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? I go where my children are. Staying home because they will be here this year.
19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer's? Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixon, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen and Rudolph
20. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Both - one present Christmas eve, the rest early Christmas morning-unless the children are too young (let them sleep) or older (make them sleep in.
21. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? When you can't find the gift you want to buy!
22. Favorite ornament theme or color? Silver with about any color and I like a lot of different kinds of ornaments
23. What do you want for Christmas this year? My grandchildren with me all the time and new slippers, wallet, jewelry Stef makes, kisses & hugs from my grandchildren, laughter with my children and did I say fun with my grandchildren?

Here you go Lahia....

Boy's Name: Jesse James
Girl's Name: Jennifer Joan
Occupation: Judge
Color: Jade Green
Something you wear: Jewelry
Beverage: Jamba Juice
Food: Jam
Something Found in Bathroom: Jergen's Soap
A Place: Jerusalem
Reason for Being Late: Jury Duty
Something you Shout: Jump!

Important Announcement!

Christmas Eve, December 24th, at 7:00pm we will have the 1st Annual Ellingson/Barkley Family Christmas Skits. (Remember the Nutcracker? Along that line guys.) Each family is encouraged (please read, expected, or maybe even ordered,) to come up with a family skit. Everyone that wants can come up with their own as well. For clarification, Jason, Lahia, and Jaxon are one family unit. Jer, Stef, Kohen, and Jonas are one family unit. Julie, Jeff, Mette, and I are another family unit. And any other combination can be put together, after the initial skits have been completed. Remember, we are looking for quality here - top the nutcracker - no average, middle of the road stuff now - serious effort has to be put into this. The proud sponsor is seriously putting up a $150.00 prize to the top skit. This is real!

5 New Updates - That should keep many of you happy for a while.

Snow is here!

Here's what was waiting for Julie and I when we got to work this morning. There was just a little skiff of snow on the cars in Fairfield and no snow at all on the ground. But at about Bellevue, we started seeing snow and everything was covered when we got here. Winter is here and the cold is on it's way.

Here are the trees outside the front door of our office. Notice the leaves have not fallen completely off. Fall came late and then winter decided to not follow suit and just dumped snow while the rest of us were not ready yet.

Halloween, 08 Murder Mystery!

I stole many of Stef's pictures as mine didn't come out very clear.)

Here's the entire cast (Top Left:) Stef, Laurie (behind Stef,) Stephanie, Mike, Jer, Jeff, Mark, Doug, Jason (I love how somber and serious he is - reminds me of the old photos taken of the real west.) (Front Row, seated:) Lahia, Angela Kay, Dana, Connie, Julie, and Sally.

Jeff (ala J.T. Stroder,) played a deputy dying to have athority and dying to be in charge. He was rather dim-witted (which he did incredibly well - so well, in fact, that Stef felt the need during the play to let everyone know that he wasn't really that dumb, he was playing a part,) but honest character. At times, Jeff stole the show.
This is me - I played a washed-up, semi-lunatic, "genuine Civil-War hero!! I mean, I was a decorated hero and a Founding Father of the town of Catcus Gulch." That is, until my property was stolen for nickels on the dollar by that no-good theif of a railroad representative and his tramp of a wife.
Julie played a local Indian drunk who owned a trading post. (A little side note here - I am daily amazed at how beautiful my wife is.) She spent hours and hours on this costume. It was detailed, intricate, and beautiful. She won best costume for this. (Spoiler alert - never share a flask of cactus juice with her.)

Jason was the semi-honest (just don't play him cards, sheriff trying to solve this complicated murder. His costume called for a duster overcoat, a cummerbund, a vest, and thena shirt (followed by his garments,) he was about to melt on us. He beat us all at cards and sorted the details out great.

Lahia played a "Good-Time Girl" at the local casino. She grew up not quite acepted by the white community and not accepted by the indian community. Her plight as an outcast made her desperate, so she took measures into her own hands to secure her own survival.
Stef was the owner of the bar we were standing and drinking in and the narator, (as well as the wutho of this year's mystery.) She did an incredible job pulling all the peices together and making it all fit.
Jeremiah was a traveling Preacher/Bible Salesman (or was he?) He won this years best actor. This part was writen for him. Should he ever decide to become a criminal - he would make a great conman.
Mark and Dana (along with Mike) were easily the most sleezy, underhanded characters int he mystery, and they played their parts great. Mark was smooth and oily - it would be easy to believe he would steal a man's property (for nickel's ont he dollar mind you,) Dana was great. She has had three years worth of underhanded, despicable characters and she has nailed each one. Is there a pattern here? Maybe we should look into this.
Stephanie was a barmaid and helper to the bar's owner. She played the part well and added fun to the overall mystery.
Angela Kay was "just passin' through town," but she was certainly involved in everyones business for a stranger to town and she just happened to be in the middle of everything. Coincidence or not?
A lady of breeding and quality stuck, due to the unfortunate murder of her late husband, inthis little backward town. She would love to bring class and dignity to the town, but the citizens just won't let her. She morns the loss of her husband, but enjoys the money he left her. she woiuld love to find out who killed her husband, but she witht he meager clues she has gathered, she is no closer today then when he died.

Sally is the town florist and gosip. She did a great job of spreading rumors and droppig inuendos. She is a true belle stuck in this dirty little town.

Mike was the infamous gun-slinger lawman "Doc" Holliday. This was MIke's first year with us. He was spectacular. As stated above, he played the part of the oily, sleezy gun-slinger fabulously. (Hint: Next years part is nothing like this one - however, it should be fun.)
Laurie played last year with us. Her personality is just so fun that she makes the entire mystery fun to be a part of. She was the daughter of the deceased and was bound and determined to save her inheritance as well as not jeopardize her engagement to the infamous "Doc" Holliday. One thing was certain, she had no patience for her poor uncle that was shorted by that deceptive, conniving railroad man.

The Camas County High School Senior Class has 13 students. I have never been associated with a school this small. The Junior class is even smaller and the Sophomore class is even smaller still.

Volleyball Team Went to State.

Julie and I were casual fans last year of the girl’s volleyball team here at Camas County High School. We attended most of the home games. This year, with Mette on the team and having gotten to know all of the girls on a much more personal level, we only missed 3 of their 24 games. The girls had an incredible year. Last year, they took last place in their District, winning only two games. They got a new coach this year and worked very hard all year long. They ended up taking 2nd in their district and going to State for the first time since 2000. It was an especially fun year to be a part of. Now we look forward to basketball season. These girls learned that they can be winners – we’ll see if this translates into the basketball season. (By the way, Julie is going to be the Stat keeper for the girls so she gets to travel to every game this year.)

Football Season is Over!

Camas County High School had a fairly poor season. They won two games and lost seven. That’s two games more than they won last year. I think next year they have the potential for breaking .500 – we’ll see next year.

On a more positive note, Jeff did have a fairly good season, despite not really having any blocking up front for him. He rushed for 1,269 yards and 14 touchdowns. That made him the #1 running back for yardage in the State (1A Division II) and the #2 in the State for all divisions and classifications. He averaged 7.21 yards per carry. With Camas placing tied for last in their league, there is a pretty slim chance that he will have any league honors, even though he lead the league in yards. (This is why I do not like voting on All-League and All-State Honors, there is too much personal conjecture involved and politics. In track, on the day of the District Meet, if you beat everyone else, you are the league champion. No one votes, you prove it yourself.)

We are a little bit worried as it appears there are no offensive linemen returning to block up front – it might be a very tough year for Jeff coming out of the backfield.

New Pictures.

I just wanted to share a new picture we took today.

A Long Over-Due Update!

You’d never know it from our blog, but I honestly do enjoy writing each update – I just never find the time. We’ve had a very busy start to the new school year. With Jeff playing football and Mette playing volleyball, we have an athletic event 3 if not 4 nights a week. The other nights are filled with church and homework. Today is a Saturday and I came in early to work, but I found that my mind was wondering and I having to do the same tasks over and over again because I just don’t have the attention span today. So I gave up and decided to read back through the older posts on everyone’s blogs. It has been a fun morning. I feel re-energized and committed to keep mine updated better.

The two pictures here were taken just outside the front door to my office. You can begin to understand why my mind has wandered so much today; It is incredibly gorgeous outside right now. I feel like I should be spending my time outside, probably taking pictures, instead of sitting inside on one of the last nice Saturdays of the year. Snow is just around the corner, as it is below freezing now in the mornings when Julie and I leave for work.

Jeff's Football:

Jeff's team this year is better than the team last year and he has had a very good season so far. He has played four games so far and he has a total of 511 yards rushing and four TD's. With five games left, he could easily gain over 1,000 yards this season. The really exciting thing is next year. The team only looses 3 seniors, but has a lot of freshman that are coming along and will fill in nicely. We are looking forward to next season with baited breath.

Mette's Volleyball:

Mette arrived here having never played volleyball. The school got a new coach with a long history of winning behind him. The Camas County voleyball team only won 2 matches last year. They have had a very winning season and are improving significantly each week. The very first match this season was against Carey, which the girls lost in 3 straight sets. Last Tuesday the Camas County girls blew Carey off the court, wining 3 of four with scores of 21-25, 25-14, 25-12, 25-15. It was exciting and fun. They have worked hard and Mette is becoming more and more comfortable with the team and the game with each passing day.

My Baby - 27 years.

Here is a picture of my baby. Can you believe this is the mother of four and the grandmother of three? Sorry to get all sappy and drippy on you all, but i think she is more beautiful today than the day I married her 27 years ago. As far as I can tell, she only has one flaw - her cats, but I even tolerate the cats and their annoying habits just so I can live with her and spend time with her. This past year has been incredible; we see each other litterally all day long as we commute to work together, work in the same office together, and then commute back home together. In my personal prayers, I thank God daily for her.

The beauty of Oregon.

I moved to Oregon when I was 15 and have traveled around and through the state many, many times however, I am still awe struck by the diversity and beauty of the state every time I travel in it. Below are just a small sampling of what I love in Oregon. (We took a trip in late July and early August of this past summer.)

The rough and tumble Oregon Coast on a calm, beautiful day. It is even more beautiful on a nasty, stormy day.

The lush green folliage is always filled with abundant life - here is a dragon fly.

Multnomah Falls. The double falls are spectacular.

The Columbia River Gorge looking at Crown Point and on eastward to Beacon Rock.

The Columbia River Gorge is easily one of the most beautiful places on earth.

Below and West of the South Falls at Silver Creek Falls State Park.

Same Falls, closer view.

Here is the South Falls, which you can walk down to and completely under. I'm sure you can see why it is one of my favorite places in Oregon.

Kohen, Jeff and I standing in front of the North Falls at Silver Creek Falls State Park. Mette, Jeff, Kohen and I got to spend the day together walking around the park and looking at the various water falls.

Little City of Rocks - Outside Gooding, Idaho.

When I was younger, many, many pounds lighter, and significantly more stupid than I am today, my oldest brother, Mark and I used to rock climb. I can distinctly remember the day that I decided I was done climbing. Julie and I had moved to southern Califonia and I had met up with a man about my same age in our church that had always wanted to learn to rock climb. We worked for a complete spring and summer gradually climbing harder and harder routes on taller and taller rocks and mountains. Our goal was to climb to the top of Tahquitz, a granite and quartzite moutainous outcropping in the San Jacinto Mountains of Southern California. Finally, we felt we were ready. We chose a fairly simple, yet exposed route up the 900' - 1,000' rock face; studied guide books and pictures and made the trip in the late fall, early winter of 1988.

At about 200' from the base of the rock, a huge granite flake peeled off the mountain with me on it. I pushed myself away from the falling rock peice, which was about the size of a small automobile, so that it wouldn't land on me and I dropped about 35', bouncing off a rock and pine needle covered ledge and slid over the edge to a 100' plus drop. Somehow I had the enough of my senses about me to grab into a deep crack in the rock wall and pulled myself up and onto the ledge i had just bounced off. I watched, horror struck, as the huge boulder that I was on top of only moments learlier continued on down the hill landing with litterally an earth shattering thud and then a crack as it split in two peices about 100' below where I was. When the adrenaline flowing through my body finally subsided, I felt a sting and a pain shoot from my right hip all the way up my spine and into my head. My ears were ringing (and would continue to do so for nearly a week,) and I couldn't lift my head. I laid there for what felt like forever assessing my body and trying to move various body parts until gradually I could move all of my body and I knew I hadn't damaged myself too badly. Laying there, I thought, I have a wife and a family to take care of. I couldn't do that crippled, paralyzed, or even worse, dead. That was when I quite climbing for good.

Anyway, I told you that long story so I could tell you about a place called Little City of Rocks between Gooding, Idaho and Fairfield, Idaho. Mette and I drove there and wandered through the rocks. The entire time I was walking around I kept thinking to myself, "I wish I had know about this when I was a climber." It was spectacularly beautiful. The pictures I have included do not do it justice. You really can't tell the size and sheer exposure of these rocks. When we were climbing actively, Mark and I discovered a incredible and very remote site to climb years ago, called the Menagerie outside of Sweethome, Oregon. It was a series of lava tubes that time and water eventually erroded the earth from away from to expose a handfull of incredibly beautiful climbable rock pillars. At the time, we thought it was the coolest place we had ever seen. The Little City of Rocks is the exact same geologic formation, only ten times larger with litterally a thousand or more possible climbing routes, rocks, and locations. If we had lived and grown up here, I probably would still be rock climbing.

Abandoned Idaho Update.

I haven't included any Abandoned Idaho pictures in quite a while. Here is one new one and one of my favorites. The first is an outhouse all by itself sitting out in a grazing meadow on the highway between Fairfield and Gooding. The second is an abandoned minning shack (which I have included in our blog before, I just like it,) which sits on the back side of Dallar Hide Mountain off of what is barely a passable road almost 15 miles south west of Ketchum.

Finally, Mette Arrived.

Back in late December of last year the school contacted us and asked us if we would be willing to host an exchange student for the last semester of lthe year. Julie and I have talked about hosting an exchange student for several years, especially a Swedish exchange student so I could re-learn Swedish, but we always thought we would wait until all of the kids were out of the housebefore we did it. For some reason, the idea of doing it now instead just caught our attention and we thought that we would look further into it.

The student they were looking to place was an 18 year old boy from Bogota, Columbia. The more we read his profile the more we knew that he just would not be a good fit here in Fairfield nor a good fit in with us. He liked living in big city and all the activities that big cities offered. He liked going to discos and clubs, and he liked going to cultural events and places. He talked about having servants at home and liking to occasionally help the cooks in his house with meal preparation. We thought he was going to be absolutely miserable in our little house and especially disappointed in our little town. We passed on him, but asked if they had anyone from Sweden, and especially an athlete from Sweden.

They showed us three possible students; one boy from southern Sweden, a soccer player who was going to be a senior, a track girl also from southern Sweden, also going to be a senior, and a junior girl from northern Sweden who had participated in track before. Julie and I instantly settled on the senior girl from southern Sweden; Mette Ericsson. It was like she jumped off the page at us and we knew she was going to be a great fit with us. However, we were still worried about how disappointed she would be in our little town.

We first contacted Mette and her family in January of this year. We exchanged emails and pictures almost weekly for seven months before she arrived. We felt like we already knew her and her family well by the time she finally arrived in late July and she just slipped in and became a part of us. She has been here for a month and half now and we feel like she has always been a part of our family. She has definitely stolen all of our hearts and we are glad she is here. She is playing on the Camas County High School volleyball team right now. She plans to play basketball and run track. It’s going to be a fun year, although very busy making it to all her games and matches as well as Jeff’s.

Jeff's Birthday and Welcome Mette Party!

Two days after Mette arrived was Jeff’s 17th birthday. We invited almost all of the kids in the Junior and Senior classes from school to come celebrate and to meet Mette. I didn’t count but we had most of the kids from the school and quite a few of the parents and friends. In all it was a very fun day. The kids played silly kids games on the lawn until after dark. It was a lot of fun. We cleaned up from the party, packed our bags, jumped int eh car and drove to Oregon to see our kids and grandkids. We arrived Sunday morning just in time to see our third grandson, Jonas for a brief second before he was packed up and taken up to Doernbecher Children’s Hospital in Portland. We cover more on that in the part on our trip to Oregon.

The Jewett Family.

One of the greatest treasures we have found here in Idaho is the Jewett Family; Randy, Wendy, and JD Jewett. AS a matter of fact, one of the primary reasons we moved from Carey to Fairfield was the opportunity for Jeff to be coached by Randy. We met Randy and JD during the track season Jeff’s freshman year. I spent some time talking with Randy and knew almost instantly that he and I were cut out of the same cloth. We were impressed with his passion and concern for his athletes and we wanted Jeff to be a part of his program. Jeff and I visited the school early in the summer after his freshman year. Julie, Jeff and I drove through Fairfield several times mulling the decision as to whether or not we should move or just stay where we were. Finally, after two weeks of football practice at Carey, Julie and I just felt compelled to come to visit Fairfield again. We called Randy up and asked if we could come walk through the school one more time. That was a Friday afternoon. We walked through the school on Saturday morning. Spent time talking with Randy, met Wendy for the first time, and met JD again. Julie, Jeff and I were all convinced that Fairfield was supposed to be home for us. We attended the little Fairfield Branch the next day and one week later, we lived in Fairfield.

As the year progressed and I got the opportunity to work with Randy in coaching both of our sons in the discus and shot put with him and as we traveled and spend hours and hours together, we began to feel that the Jewetts were much more than friends, they were family. We look forward to a long and enjoyable future as Jeff has Randy for two more football seasons and two more track seasons. Our only real regret is that JD was a senior last year we will not get to coach him during track this next year. The successes that Jeff and JD had made this past year one of the most exciting, fullfilling years we have had in track ever.